Adirondacks Report Upsets Residents

By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK, Special to The New York Times

Published: May 9, 1990

OLD FORGE, N.Y., May 8—
After holding hearings from Long Island to Buffalo, the Commission on the Adirondacks in the 21st Century released a final report today in Albany, where the fate of its proposals for preserving the area's wilderness will largely be determined.

People here in this North Country village are hoping for a say in the process, which they say will determine the fate of their livelihoods.

''The Adirondacks are a special and a different place, and of course protecting that is a good idea,'' said Don Kelly, the zoning officer for this village and the surrounding town of Webb in the southwestern Adirondacks. ''But there's also a fatalistic view here that we'll really wind up having no say about our future.''

Apprehension over the commission's report is high here and in many of the other 104 communities within the ''blue line'' that defines the Adirondack Park. The pace of new home construction, the amount of privately owned land, even the size of merchants' signs and the noise from motorboats, would all be curtailed under the sweeping recommendations of the commission.

'A Last Clear Chance'

The panel, appointed by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, concluded that New York State had ''a last clear chance'' to preserve the wilderness character of the Adirondacks. And it proposed a one-year moratorium on nearly all construction within the park, new restrictions on building, and further state purchases of private land.

Today, as many environmental groups rushed to embrace the panel's recommendations, some local leaders were skeptical. Despite the report's endorsement of ''revitalization'' programs for Adirondack hamlets and more state aid for the health, education and housing of year-round residents, they said, the larger effects of the report's proposals could be crippling.

George P. Hiltebrant, the Webb town supervisor, said that the zoning restrictions and a proposed one-year moratorium on new construction permits on nearly all lakefront property would be ''economically damaging,'' to the town.

''I think the environment is an important thing and we have to protect it,'' he added. ''But to just say 'Stop!' is going too far.''

'Great Open Spaces'

The commission's chairman, Peter A. A. Berle, said that the program outlined today would benefit people in the park by fostering both ''great open spaces and dynamic hamlets'' that would keep the Adirondacks ''unique in the American scene'' for generations.

The primary reason for the tension here is that the Adirondacks, while frequently referred to as the largest park in the lower 48 states, are not a park in the sense of Yellowstone or Yosemite: About 58 percent of the park is in private hands, though much of that must be preserved as forest under existing regulations.

While the amount of private ownership would decrease to 48 percent under land acquisitions proposed by the commission, the question remains how public concerns about protecting the park's overall character should be reconciled with private-property rights.

The commission is now advancing recommendations that, through the state's purchase of conservation easements and a program of transferable development rights, would channel most new construction into about one-tenth of the park's 6 million acres.

Construction Has Soared

That would clearly slow the current pace of development. But the costs of such restrictions, both to the state and to the people who make their living here, are now likely to be at the heart of the debate that will determine whether the proposals will become law.

In the town of Webb, construction of new homes has soared in recent years, and many of the town's 1,700 year-round residents depend on that construction for their paychecks.

The lakefront construction moratorium would have an immediate impact, said Mr. Kelly, the zoning officer. Nearly one-third of the 249 new residences constructed in the past four years are on the Fulton chain of lakes, and several more projects are pending.

''The people who sit on our town boards are as concerned about overdevelopment as anybody else,'' said Mr. Hiltebrant, the town supervisor. ''But to have more rules imposed from the outside is not fair to us.''

Public Presentations

A realtor in town, Chuck Eldridge, said that new restrictions in the Adirondack Park could drive up already escalating prices of real estate, aggravating the housing problems of year-round residents and penalizing others who look for a summer place here.

The recommendations will now be the subject of public presentations across the state. How soon or even whether they will go before the Legislature is largely up to Governor Cuomo.

The Governor, who charged the commission with finding a way to head off an era of ''unbridled land speculation and unwarranted development that may threaten the unique open space and wilderness character of the region,'' did not comment today.

Several lawmakers have said he is likely to gauge public reaction to the report before deciding whether to press for adoption of any of the major recommendations. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Gary G. Fryer, said the Governor planned to back implementation of ''at least some'' of the proposals.

Battle Lines Being Drawn

While the Governor and legislative leaders remain consumed with the long-overdue state budget, battle lines are already being drawn over the report among private lobbying groups.

The Adirondack Fairness Coalition, an 800-member group of residents that says it seeks to balance park protection with economic growth, criticized the report today for ignoring economic concerns and said it contained ''some of the most radical controls ever proposed for private land'' in America.

''Adirondackers aren't paving mountaintops,'' said the group's director, Andrew Halloran. ''There is no development crisis.''

But the executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Planning Lobby, Lee Wasserman, praised the report as a ''watershed document.''

''Anyone who loves the Adirondacks, who knows how lucky New Yorkers are to have this resource within our borders, has to be pleased,'' Mr. Wasserman said. ''The steady pattern of developmental abuse could not be sustained without irreparably damaging what makes the Adirondacks unique.

Photo: The Commission on the Adirondacks in the 21st Century released a final report on preserving the wilderness character of the Adirondacks. ''The Adirondacks are a special and a different place, and of course protecting that is a good idea,'' said Don Kelly, the zoning officer for Old Forge, N.Y. (Nancie Battaglia for The New York Times); map of New York showing location of Old Forge (The New York Times)